


What You Wanted

by wikabee



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 04:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wikabee/pseuds/wikabee
Summary: "God, he must have been so scared… The thought cut into his brain like a knife.  For the first time in his life he practically begs for a new ghost to haunt him, to loom and scream so loudly that he can’t hear, can’t think of anything but terror.  They were a familiar demon, one that never got easier to confront but still almost comforting in their consistency.  He could handle being haunted, he could handle the mausoleum, the drugs and the withdrawals and dad’s ever growing disappointment.  This… image, this entire situation, was an entirely new beast.He’d give anything, see anything, to erase the images of his brother’s body (pieces of his body, he corrects himself) from his head. "Ben is injured horribly on a mission, torn apart by his own power, and the siblings wait awkwardly to find out his fate.  In the quiet Klaus can do little more than reflect on his powers and what they mean for his broken family.





	What You Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> every time I think about this show I keep circling back to how conflicted Klaus must feel about his powers. They've traumatized him and destroyed so much of his life, but also gave him a chance to never lose the brother that was taken from them so young. I'd like to think that there;s good aspects to his powers, even if they're buried under a lot of confliciting feelings and guilt
> 
> Please let me know if there's anything I missed or if you enjoyed reading this, it's been a few years since i've written much of anything and I'm very excited to get back into this!

The seance gazed lazily out the window, his eyes focusing occasionally on each passing spirit before his attentions would flit elsewhere.  The spirits and house plants and his siblings quiet grief blended into something almost pleasant. He tried to let his mind settle on it, in some desperate attempt to burn this feeling into his brain.  High or not, he knew better than to expect peace to ever come by again.

It was safer this way.  Easier, at least. It was hard to chase them off in their entirety.  They were always there, somewhere clawing at the corners of his vision, but sometimes the fog of the drugs was almost enough.  They came in blurry, shambling masses, their voices muffled and faces indistinct. And he knew, of course he knew, that he couldn’t sustain it, that the drugs would tear away at his body and his mind until there was nothing left.

But what the fuck did it matter, anyways?  Ben is _dead,_  torn to pieces by the monsters their father insisted that the boy risk himself to tame.  A lifetime of training, of watching the terror in the boys eye just before… something escaped from him, insisting that if Ben were only stronger he’d recognize that he had nothing to fear and only demons to conquer.  And for what? Why, then, shouldn’t Klaus fear the dead, too?

 _God,_ _he must have been so scared…_ The thought cut into his brain like a knife.  For the first time in his life he practically begs for a new ghost to haunt him, to loom and scream so loudly that he can’t hear, can’t _think_ of anything but terror.  They were a familiar demon, one that never got easier to confront but still almost comforting in their consistency.  He could handle being haunted, he could handle the mausoleum, the drugs and the withdrawals and dad’s ever growing disappointment.  This… image, this entire situation, was an entirely new beast.

He’d give anything, _see_ anything, to erase the images of his brother’s body ( _pieces_ of his body _,_ he corrects himself) from his head.  

 

* * *

 

 

“Maybe he isn’t dead,” Allison muses, her voice tentative but with naive determination, “I mean, look at Pogo, he’s done amazing things before, maybe-”

“You _saw_ him,” Vanya answers, cutting her off. “Dad can’t fix this, no one can,” her voice was reserved, even now, years of restraint already choking down the anger in her throat.     

Allison's expression darkens, displeased at the answer.  “Of course you wouldn’t believe in him, _Number 7_.” she replies coldly.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” For a moment Vanya is offended, the retort bordering on a snarl before she reconsiders.  She softened, almost pleading, “Allison, I’m sorry, I just… you should be prepared.”

“ _I heard a-”_

“Allison, that’s enough!” Luther boomed, in that authoritative voice that made him sound so terribly like dad.  The room returned to silence once more. And Klaus thought for a moment that it would be best to leave it there.  “Dad will update us as soon as he can. The fact that we haven’t heard anything means there’s still something left to save.”

“I’ll know soon enough,” Klaus found himself saying.  The words escaped too fast, before he can stop them. Klaus so rarely thought before he spoke, and he only occasionally regretted it. But the second it left his mouth he wished he could take it back, he felt as the words crashed to the ground and each pair of eyes found their way to him.  His fingers find their way around another pill, as he tried to pretend to redouble his efforts on the window, as if he had never said anything at all.

“What would we do without you, Klaus,” Luther growled, and the room returned to a heavier silence.  Klaus catches sight of hunched over old spirit, hobbling dutifully down the sidewalk, and zeroes in on it.  The woman isn’t a particularly interesting sight, be he’s grateful for anything to keep his gaze pointedly fixed away from the interior of the room.  If Ben was here, he didn’t want to know.

Not yet.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes Klaus felt like a walking obituary.

Ghosts liked to cluster around the people they used to know- friends, family, sworn enemies,  that one teenager they sold drugs to ages ago that swore up and down he could talk to ghosts… man he really, really needed to stop telling people about that.  Especially those with such a propensity for dying young and vengeful.

He’d clamor for a pill or several, and suddenly they’re silent again, kicking and screaming for the one person who could hear them to just _listen_ , swallow down the terror in his eyes and for God’s sake stop waving Goodbye.  This is when the ghosts would grow angrier, because _fucking hell_ there had to be someone who cared, who didn’t _cower_ at their very sight, isn’t death punishment enough?  

Some coped better.  Klaus would watch with dull fascination as the families of the dead strolled down the street, unaware of the doting mother following dutifully behind, content only to know that their children’s lives would grind on without them- clumsily, at first, then with a renewed confidence that invited a strange young girl to whisk the dead away to kinder places.  

They were the few ghosts Klaus could never bring himself to fear, in all of their gentle and unshakable sense of duty.  They’d smile at him, with that terrible sadness in their eyes, and he’d raise a hand back. _Goodbye._ And he’d feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to settle, the desire to cloud his brain with anything powerful enough to chase away this curse momentarily faded.

Sometimes he’d envy those odd, “happy” families.  It was wrong, at least some part of him knew that much, to wish that loss on a child and death on their loved ones.  But to have had someone so nurturing, in a life so terribly mundane that a person’s greatest mission in death could be only to bring comfort, well, it just sounded really sweet is all.  

It was nothing more than a far off day dream, but it was one of those rare images that brought him anything less than cruelty and so he embraced it wholeheartedly.  In a perfect world, where kids weren’t raised as soldiers and the dead didn’t claw at the windows, maybe he’d have some benevolent spirit following along ever so gently in his footsteps.  A long lost grandmother perhaps, or a loving, if stern, father. He’d settle even for one of Vanya’s several dearly departed nannies (sometimes he still met them in the halls, limbs and necks at terribly crooked angles, Vanya’s name hissed from between gritted teeth).  On second thought, he could do without the nanny.

Or, perhaps, his brother.

 _Again, damn it._ He buried his head in his hands, working his fingers through a mass of messy dark curls as he tried to purge the thought from his head. Even when he was quiet, even with no one else to annoy or to horrify and disgust, even then he could say the wrong thing, manage to _think_ the wrong thing.  

How could he hope to control the ghosts when he couldn’t even control his own thoughts, or stop himself from slipping another pill into his mouth without his siblings noticing (they don’t, and he’s never been so happy to be ignored), or even something as painfully simple as keeping his hands from shaking?  The ghosts are whispering in his ears again, impossible to drown out, the drugs doing painfully little to distance them. _You wanted this,_ he thinks, _this what you asked for._ And in the haze of grief and tension and drugs that never seemed to do quite enough, he swears it was whispered by a ghost.  

“ _No no no!”_

It comes out louder than he wants it too, echoing through the room in a way that makes even Luther, try as he might,  unable to ignore the outburst. Klaus can feel their eyes on him, each sibling searching for clue and fumbling their way through finding kind words to say.

In the end, they do nothing.

They’re all still hovered together, hunched over on the couch and a mismatched assortment of chairs, barely within arms reach.  It occurs to each of them that maybe they could comfort each other, somehow, talk out their fears or cry or even just talk about _anything,_ really, a welcome distraction. But even now they’re left frozen, just seventeen years old and already unrecognizable to one another. The whole thing is so stilted, so terribly _pathetic_ that Klaus nearly has to hold back a fit of laughter.

“I… is is it Ben?” Diego finally asks, grimacing at his childhood stutter.   His voice is gentle- almost _hopeful_ , Klaus realizes.  He’d take anything to stop this waiting game, even the worst answer better than knowing nothing at all.  Klaus can only shake his head stiffly. _Not yet_ , he thinks, but this time his words stay firmly planted in his throat.

Diego shifts, looks almost like he’s going to stand, but the thought passes as quickly as it came, and he does his best to return to sharpening the knife that he has been toying with all day, a bit more forceful than before.

The drugs are working now, _finally_ , and Klaus feels the world grow hazier.  Without the distraction of his family and Diego’s half hearted family bonding moment placed haphazardly back on the shelf it’s all too easy to get pulled back under.

All Klaus can see is the little boy, all of eleven years old and covered in blood.

It was never the tentacles that got to him, or even the bodies of their victims.  It was the aftermath, once the carnage had been swept up and each criminal dumped unceremoniously into the dirt, their souls with nowhere left to go.  It was watching his brother, _his friend_ , surrounded by an ever growing hoard of shambling, bleeding masses that only Klaus could see.

He could see Ben so clearly at eleven, with his youthful face and ever present smile.  At thirteen he was taller, certainly taller than he was at eleven and maybe taller than Klaus at thirteen (it felt likely, with Klaus’s late growth spurt and all that).  He could never say for certain, could hardly even remember the details of his face. Sometimes he’d try to look, study his features the best he could before the ghosts took notice, hissing and begging for Klaus to do their bidding against the _creature_ (sweet, smiling Ben) that tore them to pieces, who wouldn't let them be whole even in death.  Slit his throat while the monsters are sleeping, push him off the railing, it’s the only way to protect everyone; they’d whisper (they used to sneak into the kitchen and make waffles at night, Ben’s favorite).

He doesn’t remember what Ben’s face looked like, before it was pale and lifeless and still at seventeen.  As the body counts grew larger, the hoard more insistent, more grotesque, Ben was lost in a sea of victims  He’d avert his eyes, find a way to escape, his brother always at arms length (the very first first person he ever told about the ghosts).

And he knew Ben never wanted this, no more than Klaus wanted to see ghosts or Vanya wanted to be powerless.  But now it’s so easy to remember the words the ghosts whispered to him. _You wanted this.  This is what you asked for._

 

* * *

 

 

“Klaus?”

His breath catches in his throat at the sound. He tries not to look up, to downplay whatever terrible trick his brain has decided to play on him now.  He refuses to give it the satisfaction.

But the figure keeps looming, and if it’s a ghost it’s a terribly persistent one.  Perhaps another calling for Ben’s execution- it would be polite of inform him that he’s a little late to the party, at least.  

When he looks up, there’s nothing vengeful about this ghost at all.

Standing in front of him is the boy from his childhood.  A bit taller, a bit older, and that endless smile no longer present on his face, but even now with pieces of flesh cobbled back together he’d recognize him anywhere.

He sees the boy, and for once he is alone.   _Finally_ alone, and he hates how he has to fight to keep a smile from spreading across his face.  He hates how many years he’s lost, how this face looks so familiar and yet so completely new, and how this boy looks at him almost as if he is a stranger.  He hates that the boy is dead, and he hates that the thought doesn’t bother him much at all.

_“Ben!"_

And suddenly there’s this terrible weight lifted off his shoulders.  And he tries so hard to hide it, to let heartbreak define his features even as a smile pulls at the corners of his mouth.  He tries to focus on the dawning heartbreak of his siblings, the slowly approaching footsteps of a defeated Reginald— pragmatic and cold even at the loss of his “beloved’ child; on _Ben_ (God, poor Ben.); but he can’t ignore the emptiness of the room.  The sudden bliss of seeing Ben, and only Ben, of being able to see his face and hear his voice and not the hundreds more that moved to drown him out in pleas for the death of someone so violent (and so very sweet).

The boy (the ghost, he corrects himself) exhales, and Klaus knows that his sick joy was not lost on them.He looks tired, so tired, already; but there’s something hopeful behind the exhaustion and confusion.  

“I missed you,” Ben finally breathes, and Klaus doesn’t even try to hide the smile on his face.

 

This was never what he wanted, not really, but in that moment it was all he could ever have asked for.

  
  
  
  
  



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